Covid patient dies hours after ‘escaping’ from hospital

One of the two Covid-19 patients who escaped from a hospital in Uganda has been reported dead a few hours after the fleeing.

Mr Edward Muganga, Mityana General Hospital spokesperson, said one of the missing patients is a resident of Wabigalo Village in Tamu Division Mityana Municipality while the second one came from Kassanda District.

“Unfortunately, the patient who hails from Wabigalo Village died a few hours after escaping from the ward, according to the information we have received,” Mr Muganga said during an interview on Tuesday evening.

Dr Adonia Samanya, the head of the Covid-19 treatment centre at Mityana Hospital, said relatives of the patients removed them from the facility after learning that they were going to be referred to Entebbe Hospital.

“We had finalized everything to give them a referral given their worsening condition but their relatives smuggled them out of the ward as we waited for the ambulance,” Dr Samanya added.

According to Mr Yasin Ndidde, the Mityana Deputy Resident District Commissioner also the chairperson of the district Covid-19 task force, they are liaising with intelligence officers and local leaders in the area to trace the two patients and their relatives to avoid spreading the virus.

“We are asking their relatives to cooperate with us because if they leave those patients in the community, they are going to expose our people to danger,” he said.

The ministry of health on Tuesday said 438 more Ugandans had tested positive for Covid-19 as virus cases on July 11 rose to 88,194.

Virus deaths also rose to 2,164 after 35 more people succumbed to Covid-19.

However, there are 987 active cases on admission at different health centres with 62,213 recoveries since March 2020 when the virus outbreak was confirmed in the country.

So far, Uganda government has administered 1,076,923 vaccine doses and conducted 1,398,851 tests in a country whose population is estimated to be about 44 million people.